LONDON (Thomson Financial) – Discovery Metals Ltd said results from the soil geo-chemical survey at the Quirinus prospect confirms copper mineralisation as its strike length has been increased to at least 3,300 meters from 1,500 meters.

Assay results are pending and a diamond drilling program is planned to further assess the prospect, it added.

Managing director Brad Sampson said: ‘These results demonstrate the exploration potential of the company’s 6,400 km square tenement package in addition to the inferred mineral resources previously defined at Zeta, Plutus and Petra.’

‘We still have hundreds of strike kilometres of potentially copper enriched rocks in our tenements that we intend to explore,’ he added.
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Stuart Bradley (Brad) Sampson has taken up his post as managing director of Australian mining group Discovery Metals Ltd.

Sampson, who is based at the company’s Brisbane head office, is an internationally experienced mining engineer who has worked extensively in open cut and underground mine operations and developments in Southern Africa, Australia and the Pacific.

Chairman, Gordon Galt, said: “Discovery is entering a new and exciting phase, starting with the commencement of the pre-feasibility study on the Maun Copper Project in northwest Botswana in 2007 and then a planned progression to the bankable feasibility study stage by the middle of 2008 with a view to commencing mining at the Maun Copper Project as soon as possible thereafter.
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Our Bureau

The annual Wholesale Price Index-based inflation rose 3.79 per cent for the week ended January 5, up from the previous week’s annual rise of 3.50 per cent.

The Wholesale Price Index of all commodities was up at 216.6 points against 216 points.
Dearer tobacco

The spurt in the year-on-year inflation rate was mainly on account of a rise in prices of some manufactured products, including metals and alloys, and some fuel products, even as prices of some essential food items like vegetables and fruits dropped. The wholesale price-based inflation was recorded at 6.37 per cent during the corresponding week a year ago.
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The battleground in the biggest corporate contest in mining history is a bleak, red-stained landscape in Pilbara, Western Australia, pockmarked by some of the world’s richest iron deposits.

In temperatures close to 50 degrees centigrade, workers from rival metal firms Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton pack explosives into the flanks of arid hills, blast them into smithereens and then scoop up the ore for shipment.

The final destination for the iron – the key ingredient in steel – is likely to be China. While America languishes in near-recession and Britain frets about its decaying banking industry, China is urbanising at such a rapid pace that its hunger for iron ore has never been more acute.

The People’s Republic is expected to double its imports over the next six years after they skyrocketed since the beginning of the decade.
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Sydney-headquartered takeover target Allegiance Mining NL has begun its 2008 summer drilling exploration program, targeting nickel, copper and tungsten in the more remote parts of its western Tasmanian tenements.

Principal targets are in the Trial Harbour tenement west of its flagship Avebury project, the Godkin tenement east of Melba and the East Renison tenement north-east of Melba.

In a statement to the Australian stock exchange on Tuesday, chairman Tony Howland-Rose said the summer program will cost about $2 to $3 million.

Mr Howland-Rose said Allegiance had long believed western Tasmania to be highly prospective for major base metal deposits similar to Avebury, which was discovered in the late 1990s.

Avebury, the company’s first nickel project, is due to start production in the first quarter of this calendar year. Read more

All the signs seem clear. The American greenback is in a state of freefall. Meanwhile, an alarming U.S. credit crunch has undermined investor confidence in the financial sector.

Nobody?s quite sure how far this crisis might extend. But many of the world?s best-informed commodities analysts concur that we?re witnessing unmistakable symptoms of a fiscal malaise that threatens to undermine the foundations of North American economies.

In short, there?s no better time to stake your claim to a safe, prosperous future by placing your confidence in gold, silver and uranium, investments for all time. They can?t be printed, manufactured or duplicated. And never forget: global demand for all three of these precious metals is so high that each is being consumed more rapidly than new sources can be mined.
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Aim-listed base-metals miner Weatherly International has reached full production at its Tschudi underground mine, in Namibia, on schedule and within budget, the firm said on Tuesday.

Production is targeted at 300 000 t of ore on an annualised basis for 2008, which would contribute at least an additional 2 500 t of copper to the group.

The Tschudi mine is located 24 km west of the Tsumeb West underground mine and forms part of the Tsumeb operation.

Around $3-million was invested in bringing the group’s first entirely new mine on line. Modern long hole stoping mining methods will be used, with the ore being processed at the Tsumeb concentrator and then smelted at the nearby Tsumeb smelter. Read more